Faculty members are recognized for their contributions to the development and implementation of university policies and programs through non-administrative roles, while continuing to teach and pursue scholarship.
Marymegan Daly
Professor, Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology
College of Arts & Sciences
My research program encompasses three interrelated topics: 1) describing the anatomical, taxonomic, and geographic diversity of actiniarian sea anemones, 2) testing hypotheses about the causes and effects of this diversity, and 3) exploring the data and methods used to describe and explain diversity. I have an active field program, and employ both molecular and morphological data to solve evolutionary questions. Sea anemones are a fascinating system in which to study evolution because they are morphologically constrained by their relatively simple organization. Although there is anatomical specialization at the level of cells, tissues, or regions of the diploblastic body, sea anemones are most diverse in terms of life history and biology. Reproductive mode, fertility pattern, symbiotic relationships, and microhabitat use vary among apparently closely related species. Because they manifest both extreme morphological simplicity and great biological complexity, actiniarians provide an opportunity to investigate common evolutionary questions like how changes in development affect morphology or how symbiont acquisition facilitates adaptive radiation, and a means of addressing interesting theoretical problems like constraint and convergence in morphology.
Wendy Smooth
Professor, Department of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies
College of Arts and Sciences
My research and teaching focus on women’s experiences in political institutions and the impact of public policies on women’s lives. I am currently working on a book entitled, Perceptions of Power and Influence: The Impact of Race and Gender in American State Legislatures, which examines the impact of race and gender on the distribution of power and influence in U.S. state legislatures. Based on this research, I was awarded the Best Dissertation in Women and Politics by the Women and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. I am particularly interested in the ways in which institutions preference gender and racial norms through their institutional arrangements, norms, preferences and day to day operating procedures. In my courses, I address various public policies affecting women and girls including work/family and workplace diversity policies; empowerment for women living with HIV/AIDS; violence against women and girls; and welfare reform. My policy work is informed by my experiences as a senior research and policy associate with the Center for Women Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., which is the oldest feminist research and policy organization in the country. I continue to focus on public policies impacting women and communities of color as a faculty affiliate with the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity here at OSU.
I received both my Ph.D. in Political Science and Certificate in Women’s Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. Before joining the faculty of The Ohio State University, I was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Shari Speer
Professor, Department of Linguistics
College of Arts and Sciences
Shari Speer is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics whose primary research area is Psycholinguistics. She received a PhD in Human Experimental Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1988. Her research concerns the relationship between language production and comprehension, with a particular focus on contributions from intonation and prosodic structure. The work employs insights from linguistic theory and empirical contributions from eye movement monitoring, spontaneous and lab speech productions, and traditional reaction-time paradigms to develop models of language processing, with a focus on the time-course of underlying cognitive mechanisms.
